How NOT to Pitch to Magazines

PR for Crafters

Lesson Info

How NOT to Pitch to Magazines

Ok, so let's talk about the five things you shouldn't do when you're pitching magazines. We talked a lot about what you should dio, but there also are things that you actually should not do. So the first one is don't send a mass press release we talked about this before ages does not work, it'll get the leader, they'll get annoyed, you're making more work for them also don't signed an unsolicited package, so it might be tempting to think, well, my email might not get open, but if I send a package with all of my stuff, that'll get more attention and yes, it could get more attention if it gets opened, but often times, if it's something unsolicited, it will not get open, and you would have wasted all the money that you find on packaging and product and shipping to somewhere that it's never going to get open so on ly send the package if someone specifically asked you for a package and one thing that I've learned over the years and I was talking to magazine editor sue, they said that a few ...

mark on your package as requested and like really big, bold red or black letters, they know that it's a package that they actually requested, and it'll make it to the much faster because the mail room knows that this package has been requested so specialized the larger magazines they'll take it right up to them. So mark your package as requested just so people in the mailroom know that someone is actually waiting for that package. Okay, so don't follow up more than once for the same pitch following up once is enough no response here follow up is a response in itself. There is no reason if they have if you haven't heard from them by a week later, chances are you probably not going to hear from them about this particular story and it doesn't mean interestingly, it doesn't mean that they're not interested. It just means that maybe right now is not the time, and I know this happens especially a lot with oprah magazine where if you send them a pitch, they will not get back to you, but they'll keep your pitch on file for one it is relevant and I've known quite a few entrepreneurs who send stuff to oprah magazine. They said, yes, we're interested send the samples and then they never heard back from oprah magazine again and then a year later they got a call saying we still have your product from a year ago we will now we finally found a place in our magazine or we could feature it and we'd love to feature now that's often not the norm but with some of the larger magazines, it could be the norm. So uh oh, you know, getting no response is definitely not always a know it could be it's not for right now we'll still have it on file. We'll look at it for a story that's more appropriate in the future, so don't give up, all right? So don't pitch more than one or two editors at a time. So before when I first started, I thought, well, now I have everyone in the fashion department, I have all of their email addresses if I send an email to everyone, then everyone will get it and someone is going to respond to me because I'm reaching out to more people and I found out pretty fast that that is not what you do, and I even got an email I can't remember which magazine editor but she said you've already emailed all of us in the department and that's another one of those things where I said huge mistake like I should not do that again, but it was that's how I learned that lesson and I knew how to do that again, and I had to do that in order to learn it or otherwise, thankfully, I didn't keep doing it, and he didn't take me longer to learn it, so don't send into the same bag or two the same like five people that work in that department they do talk to each other so sometimes they'll be like oh, did you get this pitch? Oh yeah I got it too oh my god I got it to oh that's really annoying, you know and then belgians the lead your email and you should definitely uniting that so the other don't is that you shouldn't wait too long for or to respond to their request and too long usually means within twenty four hours oftentimes if it's a national magazine I will say if you're able tio don't necessarily sit by your email and wait for them to respond but when they do respond if you're able tio get back to them right away oftentimes they have a deadline within twenty four hours so you can still wait twenty four hours but if you see their email and if you're able to respond there's no reason to put it off you do want to start that conversation? Yes back to number four can you pitch to multiple magazines at the same time? Absolutely yes, and you probably should people pitch to multiple magazines at the same time and your pitch can actually be really similar the only thing could be that that's different is maybe your intra paragraph or you are personalized and get for that magazine editor, but absolutely I'm a huge fan of pitching to as many relevant magazines as you can when you're doing your pitching yeah there's no reason to wait and it's not I know what some cases like if you have a photography business, a lot of the wedding magazines or the photography magazines they want exclusive rights and they want to be the first one the first ones to publisher but that's not the case with products you I've had him I mean in my holiday gift guide I was in so many in the same month and that's totally fine and I often I'll still see that where I see a product of that sample rudy oprah magazine and I see a chocolate bar and then I'll see it in the same at or in a different magazine the same month and it's obvious that they have someone who's doing pr for them and pitching all of these magazines but they don't really know who's working on what and just because your chocolate bar was featured on oprah it doesn't mean it can still be featured in this other magazines yeah right yeah all right, so let's talk about a few more don't so what are some of the things that you shouldn't do? So this is really interesting? There is a a twitter handle that I want to show you so it's called dear pr so this is a really funny account that you might want to follow on twitter because thiss are journalists that are talking back to pr companies about one not to pitch so this is this was actually a retweet from dear pr but it says remember if it's really important make sure that you put in the subject line in old cats sure far away to get me to pay attention and all of these are really snarky like really this is why you should be doing if you want to get my attention but in a joking sort of way so don't put your subject line in all caps it drives people crazy and a sure fire way to get your email deleted um this one is saying hi journalist is not a winner over an opening line on a press release right? You want to personalize it and I got these from twitter you can go follow this account and see all of these funny things and it's true if it's not personal if you don't know their name don't say hi dear or high just say how's it going or something but you should know their name if you're pitching but in case you don't don't do something like hi journalist you'd rather not use untrue like that then because this is definitely letting them know that you don't know their name the other way they're like oh maybe they do maybe they don't but this is confirming that you don't know their names so don't do that another one is dear pr when you send me a four thousand by three thousand pixel take of one of your clients perhaps get them to pluck their eyebrows first so this is where we were talking about before and this is super funny right? You get what what he's trying to say here but don't send really large images it just makes it so hard for people to not only not be able to read the other rest of the email but they have to scroll up and sideways and down and it was just really, really annoying and um yeah, you shouldn't be sending pictures that big regardless of whether it's someone's face or not just don't do it and one more thing that I wanted to share a few theo pr e mails don't have to be pretty but when I get one with a mix of typefaces and sizes I don't have a good first impression so just keep it you know, one fund one size maybe you want a bold some things so they couldn't stand out but don't bold and underline and italics and all of those things and change bonds and you know, have a script fund and then this kind of fund it just it makes it really, really hard to read so make it easy for them to read there's no reason to be doing any of those and I urge you to go to this account and follow what they're reading, because it's. Pretty funny, but you get a lot of really great tips, and I could have done five slides of more don's, but but we don't have time for that. And, interestingly, there are pr companies that now have started. I think it's called dear journalists or something like that, and they're sort of continuing the conversation, but from their side with the journalist. So it's, pretty funny. But if you have time, check it out.

Class Description

Doing your own PR can be really intimidating. It is easy to feel like you don’t have the right connections or budget to get featured in the media. And what happens when you don’t have enough product to meet the demand of a huge press mention? Andreea Ayers knows exactly how that feels and in PR for Crafters she’ll help you develop a complete action plan for getting and managing press.

No matter how big or small your handmade operation is, Andreea will help you set up the PR plan that is right for you and the way you do business. She’ll help you identify the types of stories editors are looking for and how to pitch them what you sell. You’ll learn how to:

Find out what magazine editors are working on and who to contact

Tailor pitches to magazines, bloggers, and other media outlets

Increase sales after you get a press mention

Andreea will help set up a PR plan that doesn’t overwhelm your schedule but is in alignment with your target outlet’s editorial calendars. You’ll master the art of making your work more compelling to editors and more likely to be picked up.

Andreea has started and sold three companies in the last five years and that success has been bolstered by her DIY approach to getting press. In PR for Crafters she’ll take you step-by-step through her process and offer lots of tips on making it your own.